The following abbreviations are herewith defined, at least some of which are referred to within the following description of the prior art and the present invention.
3GPPThird Generation Partnership ProjectBCCBase Station Color CodeBCCHBroadcast Control ChannelBSICBase Station Identification CodeCCCHCommon Control ChannelDBDummy BurstDRXDiscontinuous ReceptionFBFrequency BurstFCCHFrequency Correction ChannelFDMAFrequency Division Multiple AccessFOFrequency OffsetGERANGSM EDGE Radio Access NetworkGSMGlobal System for Mobile CommunicationsIDIdentifierM2MMachine-to-MachineMSMobile StationMTCMachine Type CommunicationNBurst NumbersNBNormal BurstPSMPower Saving ModeRACHRandom Access ChannelRAURouting Area UpdateRSSIReceived Signal Strength IndicatorSBSynchronization BurstSCHSynchronization ChannelTBFTemporary Block FlowTDMATime Division Multiple AccessTSCTraining Sequence Code
In the case of wireless devices, especially mobile devices or mobile stations (MSs), battery capacity may be severely restricted due to constraints on size and weight of the device. As battery capacity is limited, ensuring an optimal power management scheme for these devices is critical, especially for the case of devices such as Machine Type Communications (MTC) devices intended for machine-to-machine (M2M) communication without an external power supply. With a primary objective of exploring different options for realizing power savings in the case of MTC devices, a new study item on “Power Saving for MTC Devices” was agreed upon in the 3GPP Technical Specification Group (TSG) GERAN Meeting #60.
As networks and wireless devices are driven by independent clocks housed inside the respective entities, proper synchronization is needed for establishing effective communication between the entities. The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is based on Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) and Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), and thus, time and frequency synchronization are needed for proper transmission and reception of information by wireless devices operating on GSM. In addition, with the introduction of MTC devices on wireless networks, in general, there is a dramatically reduced need for how frequently such MTC devices should be reachable for downlink communications. That is, MTC devices do not need to support legacy type paging operation wherein wireless devices can be paged as often as every few seconds. This dramatic reduction in the frequency of reachability for MTC devices introduces the opportunity for substantial power savings in that these types of wireless devices may experience a prolonged period of sleep between any two consecutive instances of reachability. Several methods for realizing prolonged periods of sleep are currently under consideration within 3GPP such as:                Long Paging cycle (Long DRX)        Power Saving Mode (PSM)        Mobile Power Off        
However, the use of such prolonged periods of sleep increases the risk of the wireless device (e.g., MTC device) losing synchronization with the network, because the more time the wireless device remains in the sleep mode, the more the synchronization errors accumulate (i.e., the wireless device stops performing frequent synchronization verification upon entering sleep mode). As such, identifying new methods for wireless devices (e.g., MTC devices) to quickly and efficiently re-acquire synchronization with the network as the wireless devices approach a period of reachability (which starts with the first burst of the paging block associated with a wireless device's nominal DRX cycle) will be an important aspect of the power management scheme needed for these devices. Legacy methods for re-acquiring synchronization are considered unnecessarily energy intensive and should be subject to significant optimization considering the low mobility anticipated for many MTC devices.
The conventional method for acquiring synchronization during what is known as a synchronization cycle when a wireless device wakes-up from a sleep cycle before entering the period of reachability known as a reachability cycle (i.e., before entering the portion of its DRX cycle during which the wireless device can receive a paging message) can be referred to as “long sync” and includes the following:                Performing a full sync up procedure where the wireless device will read the Frequency Correction Channel (FCCH), correct the frequency base (and slot boundary) first, and then read the Synchronization Channel (SCH) for time frame number and right cell identification.        Reading the Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH) or Common Control Channel (CCCH) messages. However, because the FCCH and SCH bursts appear very infrequently in the GSM 51-multiframe (i.e., once every 10 TDMA frames), the wireless device will spend a lot of time looking for the FCCH and SCH and then using the FCCH and SCH to adjust/verify the synchronization.        
However, this conventional synchronization method is far too complex, processing time intensive, and energy consuming considering the limited mobility expected for the large numbers of MTC devices, and thus, this conventional synchronization method can be viewed as non-optimized. Moreover, if the wireless device (e.g., MTC device) has been in sleep state for a long time, the frequency offset (FO) may be too large (e.g., >10 KHz) to allow for successful reception of the wireless device's paging block as determined according to the wireless device's nominal DRX cycle. In this case, the wireless device has to do several FCCH receptions before the wireless device can receive the FCCH properly where the FO converges to <100 Hz, which is needed for subsequently performing a proper SCH decoding. If the wireless device is unable to complete the synchronization procedure before reception of the wireless device's paging block as determined according to the wireless device's nominal DRX cycle, then the wireless device will miss the paging block reception opportunity for which the wireless device awoke.